Dânesh Zaki

I attended WiCamp Chennai mainly to find out what unconferences were and if possible, to network with people. The first objective was achieved and I was happy to see the informal atmosphere. The topic of the camp was innovation and was covered well. I was pleasantly surprised to see people with industry experience similar to mine, start their own companies. All of them had great ideas for their startups, with some ideas being more innovative than others. I was slightly disappointed at not being able to see/meet Kiruba and Balaji/Labsji.

There was an introductory presentation on innovation and globalization by Shyam Sundaram, brief talks by Karthik of Ergo, Easwaran of NIIT and others. Mohammed Azad of Reach Management brought out his pain points on retaining talent following the talk by Ashwin of NASSCOM. Deesh Mariwala was trying to say something but I could not comprehend it.

Smita and Ram, a philanthropic couple, spoke about their NGO RangDe, which provides micro-credit to the needy. The initiative is praise-worthy and will definitely be helped by participation from the IT crowd.

As is customary in such sessions, there was a smart alec seated in front of me who kept on interrupting with his “gyan” (wisdom); several times rephrasing what others were saying and causing great irritation.

I had to leave an hour before the session closed but was content overall with what I had seen and learnt.